


for i am porcelain and thorns

by paya



Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, Fire Emblem Series
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Complicated Relationships, Dialogue Light, Dysfunctional Relationships, Existentialism, F/M, POV Third Person, Politics, Rinea-centric, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-21 07:53:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19998472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paya/pseuds/paya
Summary: An introspection of Rinea and her insecurities.





	for i am porcelain and thorns

When Berkut holds her, he does so as though she were made of fine china, touch cautious and gentle. His hands are calloused, skin hardened from years of wielding his lance in battle, and is as rough as sandpaper against when it brushes against her own.

Sometimes, when he holds her hand in his, Rinea counts the scars that blemish his skin, as innumerable as stars in the sky. There’s a long, pale scar across his knuckles, the product of a skirmish with a Zofian general; another stretches the length between his wrist and the tip of his finger, a gruelling reminder of a miscalculation made during battle. There’s a thick slash spanning the diameter of his palm, and a thin, curved mark snakes down the side of his thumb and curls around his wrist like a circlet. Smaller, inconsequential flicks of white dot his skin like freckles, and Rinea tries to imagine their stories.

Each is a vestige of a battle long passed, and in Berkut’s eyes, a reminder of failure – he hadn’t been strong enough, not quick enough, and the enemy had left their mark. Even if Berkut had slain them not a moment later, the damage was done. Forever on his skin would remain the symbol of their momentary victory, no matter how small, an affront that would taunt Berkut until he died. It was a reminder that he needed to continue to grow stronger yet. He had been weak, and in doing so, he failed not only himself, but the proud Rigelian bloodline. It is for this very reason that Rinea thinks that, with Berkut, it’s always about strength, and strength only. It’s as though nothing else matters, for as long as man is strong, he is unconquerable.

And every time he believes that, he’s wrong; and every time, it’s Rinea who has to sweep up the shards of a broken ego.

Rinea’s hands are softer, with smooth, buttercream skin and nimble fingers, adept at braiding flower crowns and sewing up the holes in her gowns from when their fabric had caught on nettles in the gardens. But they are neither the hands of a noblewoman nor are they the hands of a warrior, for she sits somewhere in between, unable to fit into either of the expectations laid upon her.

One of them comes in the form of a silken ballgown, a size too tight around the waist. Her mother meets her complaints with a deaf ear, only pulling harder on the corset’s ribbon as she ties it, and the fabric buckles around the seams. Her hair is preened into demure waves by her handmaid, with a crown braid secured at her hairline by two frangipani-shaped clasps, and she’s wrapped up in a fur capelet that itches against her skin. Rinea’s hands are slipped into satin gloves trimmed with blue ribbon at the hem, and toes pinched into a pair of heeled slippers too small for her walk in.

“If you look like a proper lady, Rinea, then you will be one,” comes her mother’s response with a practiced curtness. “It is up to you, as our only daughter, to do well for yourself.”

Rinea knows all too much that ‘doing well for herself’ doesn’t mean doing what she loves (otherwise she would spend her days in the gardens, coated in soil and fresh dew), but is rather a polite way for her overbearing mother to remind of her duty: to marry a nobleman of high ranking. Rinea can’t help but wonder why it wasn’t _her_ who had married rich, considering it’s _her_ who cares so deeply about advancing their family’s social status, but her only option is to maintain a tight-lipped smile.

“But of course, mother,” she says, tone as gentle as ever.

Yes, she was gentle little Rinea with ringlets of cornflower blue, who folded her hands in her lap and never spoke out of turn. She would extend her pinky finger when she sipped her tea, would cross her legs at her ankles when she sat, and would never walk on a man’s left side. It didn’t matter that she didn’t want to be her. This was the woman her mother had sculpted her to be, the pinnacle of grace, and in so obeying she would bring honour to her household’s name.

_Honour._

Power, strength, and honour – these are the currencies of the noble world, not daisy chains and delicate embroidered handkerchiefs. Rinea is no more than a coupon to be exchanged; for her to be betrothed is only an opportunity for her mother to seize an entrance into the upper echelons of society. This isn’t a world she wants to be a part of, yet when she meets Berkut, Rinea is foolish enough to think that things might be different.

The Rigelian court is an institution built upon scrutiny, and it seems that even all of her mother’s lessons can’t help Rinea now. Rinea does try, of course—it wasn’t as though all those years of nit-picking hadn’t taught her anything—and it’s nothing short of her duty as the lady of Prince Berkut to maintain an air of refinery worthy of a royal like him. But as poised as she may be, one’s surname is definitive of everything, and she’s relegated to the bottom of the hierarchy without a moment’s notice. At first, Rinea bids herself not to let it get under her skin, but as the days pass by, time ticks slower and slower, and the words begin to seep in.

Back at home, Rinea likes to dance barefoot in the flower gardens, toes cushioned by the carpet of clovers beneath her feet. But Rigel Castle is a bleak and barren place, an indomitable fortress of grey brick and stone, and the closest thing here to flowers are the straggling tufts of weeds that poke out from the gaps between the paving stones. Dull, watery sunlight leaks through from behind the snow-capped crags that shroud the fortress, painting it in a sullen, grey light every moment of the day. The structure is as miserable as it is impenetrable, and eventually, Rinea begins to lose faith.

Then she remembers the ballroom.

When Berkut and her had first met, it had been in this very place. It’s a colossal, sweeping space with an arched ceiling and smooth parquet dancefloor, lit aureate by the chandelier’s incandescent flicker. It looks even bigger when it isn’t suffocated by masses of socialites, and Rinea feels almost lost in the emptiness. So, she does what feels most natural: she takes a breath, then a step. Then another, and another, and another…

The next time she dances here, she’s enveloped in Berkut’s arms, hand pressed against his chest. After that, dancing with him becomes a daily custom. In a way no different, for Rinea, life within the castle walls slowly melts into a bearable routine – providing she can will herself to turn a blind eye to the monstrosities that fill the fortress moat with freshly-harvested Zofian blood. Those monstrosities are orchestrated by none other than her beloved Lord Berkut; and in them, the second of her expectations presents itself.

Berkut outstretches his gloved hand towards her. This time, it isn’t so she can count his scars, nor is it an offering for a dance, but instead in the entertainment of a request of his own. His lips curl into a wry leer, and from them spills sweet venom, words coiled by his velvet tongue – “Rinea, would you care to watch?” It’s less of a question and more an order, one to which the maiden struggles to gasp a polite phrase of declination in response. The prince reads her word-parched lips as a pucker of intrigue, blind to her bewilderment, and whisks her to a chaise longue upon the balcony. He gifts a kiss upon her knuckles with the delicacy of a petal, and in sotto tones he confers, “I adore you.”

A minute later, Berkut unsheathes his blade and skewers it into Zofian armour. When it punctures the skin of the next, the blood of the first still dribbles down its edge, smeared against broken chainmail. With a gesture of the arm, the sword slides out clean – so he pushes it in again, twisting harder, satisfaction dripping down his face. The bloodcurdling screams, hoarse and molten with desperation, are a sonata far more beautiful than any of those he would dance to with his Lady.

In the eyes of Berkut, the battlefield is a stage and the Rigelian battalion its orchestra, demonstrating an intricate performance with their steel instruments. With an eruption of voice and a sword thrust into the air, the crescendo is reached, alongside the tantalising reverberations of a Rigelian win. The encore rumbles out from blaring trumpets in the victory procession that echoes across the body-strewn valley not long later. To gift Rinea the delight of witnessing such an ensemble would be the least he could do to profess his affection – or power – but who would he be to deny they had not long since intermingled? But he had become too carried away.

When Berkut cranes his neck, directing his gaze to the stone balcony upon cliffs far above, Rinea is no longer there to witness his victory. She’s no longer there to see the armour-clad bodies dotted in amongst the meadow, crumpling frost-tipped spring blossoms with lifeless weight. Instead, she’s huddled behind a cracked pillar, knees clutched to her chest, vehement tremors rippling through her limp body. Bitterness burns in her throat and her rosy eyes throb with angry tears, and a million regrets tear through her mind. Yet, she hears nothing, for Rinea has long since willed herself deaf to the music. Perhaps it would be easier to dance without it.

Rinea is no more than a weed choked in a bouquet of white blossoms, bundled at the stems with the crimson strings of fate. Amongst nobles, she is too brutish, and amongst soldiers, she is too delicate, and so to neither can she bring honour. Yet she is purposeful, as all objects in this world are: at the hands of Berkut and her mother, she will always be a pawn.


End file.
